After much drama and the initial hiccups the ruling UPA government finally managed to push through the Women’s Reservation Bill through the Upper House much to the delight of women in the country. While this can be seen a major victory for Indian government, on other hand it has lost in failing to protect the citizenship of one of its prestigious citizens and country’s most renowned Painter, Mr. M.F Hussain.
It is a disgrace on part of the Indian government that an Iconic figure of M.F. Hussain Saab’s stature had to apply for an Overseas Citizen of India card. It is disheartening to see that a foreign country has empathized to keep intact the dignity of the one of the best painters in the modern era, while our very own people have kept quiet and didn’t even bother to take any initiative to prevent losing one our greatest artists of all times.
The government should be ashamed of itself that it succumbed to the hooliganism of a handful of extremists group, which is holding the very concept of democracy to ransom. It’s ignominious that the government of India failed to provide a security assurance to a National hero like M.F. Hussain and as a result an Indian born citizen has to apply for an overseas citizen of India card for he has immense love for his motherland.
It is appalling to see that such a situation has arisen before a national figure and he had to live most of his life in a foreign country because he felt threatened for his life in his own country for just expressing his freedom of expression, a right guaranteed to him by the Constitution. This makes it obvious that the constitution is just a mere piece of paper and the rights stated in it are a mere statement. In reality people have to be careful in while expressing their freedom of thought and speech otherwise their life is under threat.
The VHP, RSS and other right wing extremists issued a warning to M.F Saab to not to step in India for painting Indian Goddess in nude. The VHP and RSS have to understand and come to terms with the reality that what M.F created was just a creative piece of art from and there is no limit to ones creativity. If these so called protectors of Hindu religion found M.F Hussain’s painting so offensive they must have long demolished the sculptures of Khajuraho, which continues to exist for centuries and is equally erotic as M.F’s depiction of Indian goddesses.
It is very much clear that the Hindu groups are clearly against M.F just because he is a Muslim; they are holding a personal grudge against under the pretext of their pseudo Hindu ideology. The Indian media which otherwise sensationalizes some very petty issues has completely ignored to give the due importance it deserves to this issue. Had media been proactive and created a debate it would have given the people of India a platform to raise their voice and we could easily prevented losing M.F. saab to Quatar.
But now that we have already lost of our priced citizen, the least the government of India can do is grant him an OCI and save itself from further disgrace.
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